Hi My friend Richard and I attended the Visalia contest and then went over the pass though Yosemite into the Mammoth Lakes area on a fly fishing trip. As we had our foamies with us, we had the opportunity to fly in a number of unusual locations. Fishing lake Crowley one day we broke for lunch, set up the bungee and quickly drew a crowd of float tubers. Most of these guys had never seen an RC plane before as we tried to slope the nonexistent lift off the bluffs of Green Banks. The following day we took a jeep trail up to Laurel Lakes at 10,250 ft above sea level searching for the elusive Golden Trout. When we got there it was 29 degrees and the wind was blowing in gusts of 25 to 30. Fly fishing was not an option. Out comes my EPP Cutter. Two throws into extreme turbulent air got be maybe 30 feet of altitude before being blown into the rock talus slopes that surround the lake. Lets see, 10,250 + 30 = 10,280 feet above sea level. A new foamie altitude record ? Probably not, but it was a kick. Later in the afternoon, coming down the hill, we found a more favorable slope for some Cutter vs Boomerang combat at 8,500 ft. At this altitude you need to fly a little faster and not pull quite so hard in the turns as I found out to my dismay. From 45% out from the slope at about 100 ft up I tried to turn in across the slope for a high speed pass. Doing Warp 9 my Cutter disappears behind a small pine tree to our left. THWACK ! The Cutter does not come out on the other side. When I walk over to see what happened I find a capped metal tube sticking up out of the ground with a lid padlocked shut on top of it. Right next to it is a 12 ft 4x4 post with an antenna array on top. Just below the antenna array is some Ultracote embedded in splinters on the post. The mangled remains of the Cutter were hanging in the pine tree. After retrieving the remains from the tree I found a sticker on the metal tube sticking up out of the ground. It read, "US SEISMOLOGICAL STATION DO NOT DISTURB". Sooooo, If any of you heard a report of earth tremors in the Mammoth Lakes area last week, not to worry. It was just my Cutter, which I will repair and rename Richter 9.0 . If any body else has stories about remote flying sites, or high altitude sites lets hear em. Ground Fault Boy RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
